


Night Driving

by trash_salad



Series: The Night Driving Series [1]
Category: Wynonna Earp (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/F, do not read if you don't like sad shit, mentions of depression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-20
Updated: 2017-01-20
Packaged: 2018-09-18 19:27:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9399701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trash_salad/pseuds/trash_salad
Summary: Every action has a reaction. Nicole finds a way to cope with Waverly's possession.Five Part Fic.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I've been nursing this fic idea for months. Thought about how I wanted to approach the very sensitive subjects in this fic, and I've come to the conclusion I need to stop hesitating and dive in. 
> 
> There will be five parts to this story, and while this part is rated G, it will slowly make it's way to M as we progress. 
> 
> I will warn that this is a very dark fic about PTSD and depression, and if you're easily triggered (non violent but a lot of mentions of depression and its ramifications) then maybe you should pass on this little venture. 
> 
> I hope they touch on Nicole's reaction to Waverly's possession during the second season, but knowing TV, they probably won't. This is my attempt to fill that gap.
> 
> Updates will be sporadic, but I will keep on this, and it will not be a WIP forever. 
> 
> Follow me on tumblr @trashsalad and give me your thoughts. Follow and you will be followed back.
> 
> As always please comment! Any encouragement, helpful critique, etc will be responded to and appreciated.

            When Waverly was at her worst, Nicole would drive. Never with any destination in mind, and usually she picked a route as she went, but she would simply walk off from that tiny suffocating room they kept her bound in, jump in her vehicle, and roam. It was the only way she could escape the screaming and the chaos.

            One could trace it back to childhood, if they so chose. The way her father used to get her to sleep was putting her in the back seat and driving a few miles from their house. It was calming to her, more than being tucked in, or hearing a bedtime story. Just the slow hum of tire tread meeting pavement, a dark sky lit by artificial lamps, and the whir of a car passing her window every once in awhile. The world as a pacifier in the literal sense.

            So she drove. The music didn’t matter—sometimes she drove with it blasting some nonsense by a popstar, other times she was serenaded with the sounds of the road—but as she made turns and stayed obedient to traffic laws and speeding limits she would leave the hateful sounds of demonic possession in her rearview mirror until she felt calm enough to return.

            She always would, mind you. Return that is. She never once had the thought of driving and not turning back again. The road brought her comfort but she was always hyper aware of the fact that her presence was needed. It just wasn’t always helpful, and that killed her like the possession that killed the Waverly she knew.

            She knew something was wrong with her girlfriend when she talked to her again. Nicole's body was littered with bruises, and she lay with an icepack on her chest, talking to Waverly with a soft kind look of love, and saw nothing looking back at her. If she wanted to specify it—she didn’t—it was nearly hatred that stared in return, a chilled sort of emptiness that made her instantly suspicious that something had happened in the time they’d spent disposing of Bobo Del Rey. It was alarming to say the least. She’d watched a man become swallowed whole by hellfire beneath the earth, and she’d been shot by a maniacal woman, but that look was more terrifying than anything on this planet, Purgatory included.

            She listened to the light click of her blinker as she turned to the right, back toward the homestead, and back to where that little room—which actually wasn’t so little—was located.

            “I’m going to fucking kill all of you.” Waverly said with a smile.

            Once again, she sat in her vehicle wondering how it got to this point. They never deduced how Waverly got possessed, but the blackness in her eyes matched the residue the demon creature left behind, so she had something of a start. All they had was a start. They had no research, and while Waverly had documents a mile high, they were in languages only she understood, and ancient tribal scribblings don’t have English equivalents on google translate. They were at a standstill. Dolls was in an undisclosed location. It was Wynonna, Nicole, and the Cowboy. She wasn’t listing them based on intelligence. They were all equally stupid when it came to saving her girlfriend.

            She watched Waverly waste away over time, and it made her throw up one night as she drove. She had the sense to pull over and empty the meager contents of her stomach onto the dirt road she’d ended up on, but it didn’t ease her discomfort. She patted the gun in her holster and instantly wondered why she did it. Did it bring her comfort that it was there? She wasn’t sure. She was more and more terrified of this new version of Waverly, and Wynonna, her eyebrows knit into a very wrinkled bundle, told her she should be prepared to use it if the time comes or if Waverly is somehow able to escape her chains. Chains. Heavy and unwieldy, leaving scars and rub marks on pale and vascular skin. She didn’t know if they would hold any longer, those chains. Waverly would smile, lean forward, and Nicole could see them begin to strain against human skin with superhuman strength in the muscle below.  Skin gave, but the chains might too.

            One night she pulled over, stumbled out of the cruiser, took her glock out, and pointed it to the dirt below her feet. With a scream, she emptied every round into the ground. It helped her a bit, to yell like that. Sorted her mind from a great jumble to a bit more organized.

            Then she stopped feeling anything at all. The troubling part was nobody seemed to notice it. Seeing Waverly at the edge of abandon wasn’t so hard anymore, and like a well worn veteran, it got easier to feed her, snarling and wild, and she got better at avoiding being bit.

            Of course, as the universe had always been cruel, this is when Dolls came back, immediately assessed the situation, called in reinforcements, and her girlfriend was cured.

            When Waverly slowly recovered, she cared for her. When she clutched at her in her sleep, she let her. She still drove.

            It was kind of funny how she treated it like it was cheating. She started off telling Waverly she was going to the convenience store, and when she came back two hours later, the other girl was well passed out, as it was four in the morning and even God wasn’t awake that early. Then Nicole didn’t eat as much. She’d push food around on her plate to make it look like she had, giving the excuse she’d already eaten, or that she was tired from work, or just plain wasn’t hungry. However, after a point weight loss gets hard to hide.

            Waverly would cry, and that was the worst part. She’d tell her she was sorry, and that was even worse. It made her feel an incredibly deep guilt that apologies didn’t make her stop wandering, or make her want to eat again, or laugh again.

            Nedley handed her a card one day as she milled about the office. It was to a therapist in town, or rather, the only therapist in town.

            “Her name is Natalie, and I think she can help you.” He said, simply. Then he walked off. He wasn’t going to try and sell it, or even say it’d helped him after he returned from the service back in the early 90’s. He laid it on her desk, tapped it with a wide index finger, and laid the option in front of her.

            She bit. Showed up to the office an hour early, chewing at her nails and debating on whether she could sit through this appointment with a woman she hardly knew. Then she thought about how after making love to Waverly, touching her and kissing her with all the tiny amount of love she had left in her body, she would drive with tears in her eyes and try to will her heart into seeing Waverly the way she saw her before.

            She went in.

 


End file.
